


The Whole Flawed Package

by ronqueesha



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 12:26:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10786734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronqueesha/pseuds/ronqueesha
Summary: It's a classic story: broken boy meets broken girl. They can't fix each other, but they can make the world a little better.





	The Whole Flawed Package

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a tiny little one-shot about how Fallout 4 should have treated Cait when you went back to the Combat Zone following her companion quest. Instead, because I adore her character and the romance so much, it ballooned into an entire "highlight reel" of the relationship between her and my sole survivor, describing many of the highs and lows that would eventually lead them back to where they began. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Tommy hadn’t tried to hide his concerns, but he also didn’t outright say “Get this crazy psycho-abusing bitch some help before she kills herself.” He also didn’t say exactly HOW a guy like Nathan Bhatia was supposed to help Cait. The old ghoul had pretty much showed them the door and went right back to his cage fighting business, promoting violence and gore to cheat raiders out of their caps. The terrible audience that filled the Combat Zone booed and jeered as they saw their prize fighter, covered in bruises and cuts, as well as a swollen right eye, walk out with a total stranger. Fortunately, Tommy’s rules about no guns and no fighting kept them from doing anything worse than slinging harsh language and rotten food at them.

As soon as they exited the front door, back into sunlight and air that didn’t smell like an unwashed latrine, Cait grabbed Nathan by the shoulder and shoved him against the nearest wall. The impact smashed his head against the old concrete and made him see stars. Not the worst injury he had sustained that day, but in the top five most surprising. Top three.

“Okay, I played nice in there for Tommy ‘cause we got history. But you? What do you really want? Gimme one wrong answer, and I take this shotgun to your daddy bags, you hear me?”

He had to blink to make sure his vision hadn’t been permanently damaged by her sudden violence. As the world became clear again, the first thing he concentrated on was her red hair. Tousled and wild, like she didn’t give a shit about her appearance. Hell, considering that his very first impression of her had been watching her beat a man almost to death, and then roar at the crowd outside the cage like a feral beast, she probably didn’t.

“I don’t know. I just thought…”

“Ya thought what, exactly? Did you think I’d be some kinda willing little servant girl who’d do _anythin_ ’ for her charming rescuer?” She tapped the barrel of her gun, which pointed downward at a very threatening angle, against his thigh.

“What? Of course not!”

“Then why the _fuck_ did you agree to take me out of that place?!”

“I just… seemed like the right thing to do.”

Something lurked behind Cait’s eyes, a small tremble that he assumed was the ocean of chems that swam in her system. In fact, before this sudden assault, Nathan had planned on rerouting back to Diamond City and convincing one of the doctors there to give her a once-over. Someone who had spent as long as her as a cage fighter among raiders had to need some kind of medical care, even if superficial. And if the doc could flush her system before they got into a real fight, all the better.

“Ah, shit. You’re one of those types, aren’t ya? Think you can make the Commonwealth a better place and make everybody all happy and smilin’ in your wake?”

“I don’t… think so.”

The shotgun moved away from his groin, but her dark expression did not leave with it. “Ah, damn it. Let’s just go. You’ll probably be dead in a week anyway.”

 

***

 

The first time he noticed something was wrong, she had been sitting in the back of some dingy little pub that served lukewarm brew and stank of Brahmin dung.

Nathan waded through the evening crowd of caravan drivers and sweaty farmers to order a round of drinks from the bar, intent on celebrating his recent victory over a gang of raiders that tried to sneak up on a defenseless settlement. Cait had been more than happy to rest her feet somewhere indoors, and doubly excited over the prospect of not having to pay for her own drinks, so she didn’t particularly mind settling down for the night in Bunker Hill’s tiny establishment.

In fact, just as they found their spot in the tiny, dark, semi-private back booth, she had all but kicked him out. “Get to the bar and get us some fuckin’ alcohol before the rest of these bastards take it all.” She said.

So while he was distracted by the rush of people, the general stink of the place, and pondering what lukewarm beverages he might be able to get in a pub like this, he didn’t notice Cait sneak a long needle out of her jacket pocket and shove it into her arm.

By the time he got back to the table, flush with second-hand sweat and with an armful of old dusty bottles, any marks in her skin had drifted away and her demeanor improved a thousand fold. In fact, it improved too much. Where she had been grouchy all day, killed raiders with a ferocious zeal, and basically forced him to buy this round, by the time he returned she was all smiles and wistful humming.

At the time, he shrugged it off. Maybe she was tired. Or maybe he was starting to look at his companion in a new way. The way she hummed when she was happy, it was so unlike anything he’d ever seen before. Tuneless and without any rhythm, but unique and unforgettable at the same time. Sometimes, Nathan imagined what Cait might have been like if she had been born in the same century as him. Might she have gotten work as a singer with a voice like that? Would he have heard her music echoing through his car’s radio as he drove back and forth through Boston?

Probably not. Not with the attitude she showed every day.

He still didn’t know why she acted the way she did, and she showed no signs of wanting to tell him. But she stuck by his side, and proved quite vicious against the threats of the wasteland. Plus, he bought her beer. They had a good thing going. He didn’t want to ruin it.

So he ignored it.

 

***

 

The second time, he caught her coughing. They had been picking through some ruined neighborhood on the west side of the city, stomping on roadroaches and other bugs whenever they popped up. Neither of them found anything useful that day, save perhaps an old comic book miraculously preserved between two ancient bookshelves. Someone in Diamond City would pay a shitload of caps for it, no doubt. Nathan had joked about how every single company back in his day used to advertise how “apocalypse-friendly” their products were. Their commercials and advertisements constantly talked about how much better their products would last after Armageddon compared to their competitors. It seems a few of them were right.

Just as he was about to call it a day, and perhaps suggest they find a campsite to hunker down, Cait hunched over, grabbed her knees, and started retching her lungs out. Not the kind of coughs one normally got when a fleck of dust caught in their esophagus, and definitely not the kind of coughing someone with a regular cold or flu would have. No, she sounded like she wanted to hack the lungs right out of her body, then keep spitting up the rest of her internal organs. Every single noise she made was wet, disgusting and improper. Almost a series of short, throaty, gurgling, echoing screams than a batch of regular coughing fits.

“Holy shit, are you okay?” He said as he jogged over to her. Cait had hunched over in the middle of the neighborhood’s ruined street, about as far away from cover as she could possibly get. It had to have been a miracle that her terrible symphony hadn’t drawn the attention of every nasty thing for ten miles. Instead, just the growing stillness of the afternoon and his plodding footsteps kept them company.

“I’m fine. I’m… just fine.” Cait rasped as she stood up from her vulnerable position and looked him in the eyes. “Don’t be goin’ all soft on me, vault boy.”

“Are you serious? The hell was all that coughing about?”

The glare she gave him could have melted concrete. It looked so hateful, and so hurt. “Don’t fuckin’ pry into me life, okay? I just had somethin’ in my throat. Leave it be.”

He complied with her wishes, but Nathan felt his stomach flip into knots for the rest of the night.

 

***

 

The third time, she vomited blood.

She had intended to hide it from him, that much was obvious. Just outside Diamond City, in an old street that used to be filled with food carts, souvenir shops, and baseball memorabilia in the back-when days, Cait asked for them to slow down.

“Why? We’re like… ten minutes out from the gate.”

“Just shut the fuck up and give me a second, goddamn you.”

Nathan sighed and took a few steps away from her. She had been growing much worse over the last week. If she wasn’t coughing, she was drinking too much. And when she wasn’t sober, she was trying to paw her hands on him and almost everyone she could see. Inebriated Cait didn’t care who gave her attention, but she wanted it bad. And she wanted bad attention in return. The kind he couldn’t give her.

Once again, he heard the awful sound of her retching, and her ragged, desperate breathing as she tried to bring her lungs and stomach under control. It echoed back and forth in his ears, thanks to the rubble all around.

The previous night, she started shaking in her sleep, and almost fell out of the cot she curled into. Nathan stayed up until near-sunrise to make sure she didn’t break anything or go into a more serious condition. He didn’t know why he did it, but he also knew that he couldn’t do anything else in that moment.

Just as the noises that came from Cait became too much to bear, and he could no longer block them out, Nathan turned around.

And saw a trickle of red fall away from her chapped and dry lips. A moment later, and the ruined street echoed with the sound of wet splashes as the trickle became a torrent, and hot crimson splatted against Cait’s boots.

One of the worst things in the world for Nathan was the sight and sound of people losing control of their stomachs. In basic training, over 200 years ago, he had endured horrible summer heat while the Drill Instructors pushed him harder than he had ever been pushed before. Many of the recruits at his side couldn’t hack it, and often voided their stomachs right next to him. And when Zoe had been pregnant with Shaun, he often had to retreat outside when she got sick, just to make sure he couldn’t hear it. She’d make fun of him for being so wimpy, and she had been right every time.

Watching Cait retch up the contents of her stomach, along with a river of blood, made Nathan want to puke as well. Oh how he wanted to. He even felt his throat tighten around itself as his stomach started to churn.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he walked over to Cait as she started to hyperventilate and keel forward just in case she vomited again, and put his hand on her back.

He didn’t realize he had started to rub up and down until a Diamond City guard on regular patrol caught them and laughed behind his helmet.

“Hey, buddy, next time you take your date outside the walls, go a little further out, huh? Not all of us like to see that kinda stuff.”

Even though she was in terrible shape, and needed immediate medical attention, Cait laughed and elbowed Nathan in the gut.

 

***

 

The coughing, the vomiting, even the drinking, started to slow down after that. And yet, Nathan started to ask himself exactly why he kept staying by her side.

Cait may not have been drunk every waking moment anymore, mostly thanks to being yelled at by four different doctors in four different settlements, but every time she did get ahold of a bottle, she turned into someone else.

Just yesterday, she had gotten completely hammered, then broke down into tears and told him the story of how she ended up in the Commonwealth. The horrors she endured, the slavery, degradation and pain. The details she gave about her shitbag parents made his blood boil. If she hadn’t said she killed them, he probably would have gone there and killed them himself. The night ended with her falling asleep on his shoulder, lost in a drunken haze. He only pushed her off when she started drooling on his jacket.

Today, she got drunk again, and this time, she had a different goal in mind. They had come back to Bunker Hill to report that a new trade route may have opened up when Cait staggered over to Nathan. The smell of Bobrov’s moonshine hung off her like a cloud, and she shuffled with every step she took.

“Well, hey, handsome.” She giggled and slurred her words. Her accent made it sound so very… unique. If this had been a different time, and he were a different man, he would have found it charming. But not this. Not now. The way her half-lidded eyes focused on nothing, and the way she grossly hiccupped and drew ragged breaths made it clear where her mind had gone back to.

“Uh, hi, Cait.” He stammered as he waved off a caravan boss and turned to face his inebriated companion.

“What say we get done with this boring business and I…” Her hands clumsily moved up to the collar of his jacket. Each one snaked around his neck and held him close. At that range, the stench of her breath almost overwhelmed him. “… Give you a reward for all the good work you’ve been doin’ lately.”

“N-no thanks. I… appreciate the offer, though.”

Her arms came loose, and she stared at him like he were made of snack cakes. “What?”

“Sorry, Cait. I just… not right now.” He tried to turn to leave. In his mind, Zoe was just a few months gone, even though it had been over six decades in real time, and two hundred years since he held her last. Shaun had told him that… before he died. Not only was Cait in a state of mind he’d never consider abusing, but it still felt like betraying the wife had lost.

Wasn’t it?

Or would Zoe have wanted him to move on without her?

“Somethin’ the matter with me, then?” Cait staggered backward and held her arms up in a hurt, broken, challenging pose. “Or somethin’ the matter with you, hmm? Somethin’ down there not working right?”

“Cait, I just… I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you. And fuck your fucking morals. Oh and fuck that dead wife of yours that you keep crying about. Here I was trying to do something nice for you for once in my fucking life, and you throw it away. Fuck you, Nathan Bhatia! I’ll just go make someone else happy. Have fun bein’ miserable!”

He let her drunkenly rant, and then he let her stagger away. It made sure that she didn’t see him bring his hand up to his eyes and take in a shuddering breath.

The next morning, she woke up with a new black eye, a ring of bruises around her neck, and very sore thighs. She didn’t say how she got them, but the bruises matched the general size of Bunker Hill’s barkeep and his large hands.

 

***

 

They fought constantly.

When he found a lonesome child on the road, and a slaver threatening to snatch him up, Cait killed the man before Nathan could do anything. And yet, when he knelt down before the child and offered words of kindness and assistance, she scoffed and turned her back on him.

“The fuck you doin’ talking like that? He’s just gonna end up roadkill.”

He stood up and pushed the child behind him. Nathan’s lungs took in a deep breath then forced it out of his nostrils like a charging bull.

“You literally have a slaver’s blood on your hands, and you’re mad about me showing a little decency?”

“I’m fuckin’ sick of you treating the whole goddamn world like it’s your responsibility! Show some fucking balls and look out for yourself for once!”

“I won’t apologize for doing the right thing, Cait!”

“I’m not talkin’ about the right thing, you pussy! I’m talking about making sure you don’t fall over and die because some wasteland asshole takes advantage of you!”

The child ran away after that, and Nathan didn’t see him again for several days. Cait huffed along at his side for that time, but she remained just as upset as she did before. And yet, when they found the child again, surrounded by more slavers who had beaten and tied him up like a farm animal, she jumped into the fray first. Her ferocity took them by surprise, and they were all taken down by a single woman holding a baseball bat.

 

Another time, when the pair came across a half-starved wastelander who hadn’t had a drink of clean water in days, Cait tried to pull Nathan away.

“Let’s just go. Leave it be.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t have enough water, jackass! What’ll happen later down the line when YOU don’t have nothin’ to drink and there’s no one around to help?”

“Fuck that, Cait. I’m not just gonna turn my back on someone.” He said it as he turned away from her, opened his canteen, and knelt before the dying stranger.

She didn’t reply with words, she just ripped the water container from his hands and hurled it into a bush.

“There. Now nobody’s got water.”

 

She slapped him when he offered to help a settlement clear out a ghoul infestation. She wanted no part in doing someone else’s work for them. “It would make ‘em lazy.” She said. “Come to depend on you too much. No one should depend on anybody for any reason.”

He wanted to slap her back, and say how stupid that sounded, but he didn’t. Instead, he killed the ghouls alone while she remained safely indoors, drinking the settlement’s meager supply of beer.

 

One night, when all seemed peaceful and they had no existential threats or looming fights to worry about, Nathan had tried to talk to Cait about the old world he lived in. Especially the things he enjoyed about it. He looked up at the stars and reminisced about old times.

“Y’know, back in Alaska, I used to get so bored that I’d spend my nights on patrol duty looking up just like this. When you joined the army, they never told you how boring it would get. You thought you’d sign up and get thrown into constant fighting, doing good things, and defending your country. Instead, you spend months at a time staring at the same piece of ground every day, with no change in your schedule whatsoever. I got really good at using my binoculars to look up and see the stars. There was hardly any light pollution up there, and it was so beautiful. When I got home, I bought a new pair just so I could show Zoe, but she wasn’t really interested…”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” She interrupted.

He looked down to see Cait sitting by the campfire he had made, poking at a small pot of bubbling water full of scavenged vegetables and meat.

“I’m trying to open up to you here.”

“And I’d prefer you keep your fucked up mouth shut. Yeah, don’t think I haven’t noticed all those ugly scars on your face. So shut up, shove those binoculars up your arse, and let me have this evening in peace.”  

 

***

 

“Hey, General!” One of the new Minutemen recruits said as Nathan walked into the Castle. At his side, Cait walked along as always. She had healed nicely from what the barman did to her, but she refused to talk about it. It also helped that Nathan had used some of his old army training to casually inform the man that, if he so much as looked at her again, the entire settlement would regret it. Word was that he and his son left Boston the next day, and some new woman had taken ownership of the joint.

She still coughed, and still shook at night, though she had taken to trying to out-last him and be the second to fall asleep so he didn’t see it. And he had caught the growing amount of tack marks on her arm, but never brought it up. She hadn’t vomited again, or at least, she hadn’t done it when he was around.

The Castle had come a very long way since he and Preston first walked into the mirelurk-infested ruin. Stonemasons were hard at work on one of the far walls, and it sat covered in scaffolding. An unusual sight in the Commonwealth, but hopefully one that would become more common in the future. Just outside his vision, through some of the bars of that very same scaffolding, the Brotherhood’s _Prydwen_ hovered over the city like a giant armored protector. Inside the giant rotunda, dozens of new recruits did physical drills like jumping jacks and pushups, or were jogging around the inner ring over and over again while being yelled at by veterans like Ronnie Shaw.

Ever since the Institute had been rendered into a crater, and the legend of “The General” had spread through the area, new Minutemen recruits practically flew into the castle. The Brotherhood had become prickly about their own pool of new applicants running dry, but they always complained about everything. Below ground, the Railroad had started to quietly close up shop now that their primary goal had been accomplished by him. They’d keep a few people around just to monitor any anti-synth violence, but as an organization, they were finished.

Instead of looking back on the way the factions had arrived and conflicted with each other, Nathan kept his gaze looking forward and upward, toward the new future that seemed to dawn for everyone. Because looking back meant looking down at Shaun as his elderly son berated and insulted him. It meant reliving the moment when he turned his own flesh and blood into nuclear dust, alongside the entire evil organization that had raised, nurtured, and corrupted him. Not looking back meant he couldn’t see Zoe anymore, her lifeless body slumped backward in the cryo-pod while Kellogg and the Institute monsters at his side took Shaun away kicking and screaming for his mother.

… _Not looking back meant he couldn’t see Zoe anymore_ …

“So… this is your brave new world, huh?” Cait asked. Ever since that day when she tried to… seduce him, they rarely talked except when the heat of battle required communication. It had become quite a mystery as to why she hadn’t left, or why he kept her around.

“I guess so.”

“You’re really gonna save the world with these toy soldiers, aren’t ya?”

“That’s not really the plan, but we’re hoping to make a difference…”

Just before they entered the castle proper, and walked into the hallways where people bustled back and forth on the business of defending the Commonwealth, Cait grabbed Nathan by the shoulder and slammed him against the wall. Memories of their very first day together went fuzzy, as did the rest of the world. He didn’t feel enough pain to cry out, but he also kept himself quiet just in case. If any of the other minutemen heard their general in pain, they’d come to investigate, rifles at the ready.

When everything came back to focus, Nathan looked at Cait, really looked at her. Behind her frazzled red hair and pale scarred skin, her eyes were small, bloodshot, and wet. Crying? He had never seen Cait cry.

“I… I really need your help.” She said it with such gentility, such vulnerability, that Nathan stood aback. Had he not been pressed against a wall, he would have taken a step away from her. “And I’m… I need… I need you to…”

“What’s going on, Cait?” Though, he already knew the answer.

“I’m sick, and I’m fucking sick of trying to hide it from you!”

“Okay. Okay. Calm down.” Nathan stepped forward and put a comforting hand on Cait’s shoulders. Aside from the tears leaking down her cheeks, her body had started to tremble. Or had she always been trembling, and he just didn’t notice? She had been shaking and quivering every night for months now. “If you’re sick, I want to help you.”

_…Not looking back… Looking forward…_

Her lips, scarred and curled like the rest of her, formed into the thinnest of smiles. The thinnest of hopes? “Ever since I left home, I’ve been using psycho…” The rest confession flowed from her mouth like an avalanche, torrenting out everything she thought she had been hiding, and a few things she really had kept hidden from him. Every word she said brought a new tear to the flood, and every new sentence made her sniffle and gasp. She bared her soul to him for a second time, speaking of weaknesses she always had, and a growing sickness that had become apparent to everyone in the world. All of it focused around the chems in her veins and the inspirational person she couldn’t walk away from.

“I need to get this shite out of my system before I wind up…” She squeezed her eyes shut, then leaned forward, closer to him. “And you… big hero man, savin’ the whole goddamn world… I just… please save me.”

He reached out this time to hold the collar of her jacket. And then he went further, and wrapped Cait in an embrace. His arms met against her back and he held her as tight as he could, fighting against the growing sensation of burning tears in his own eyes. She sobbed against his chest, and he didn’t stop her.  

“Why are you bein’ so kind to me, even when I’m letting you down again?”

He didn’t have an answer.

_He couldn’t see Zoe anymore._

 

***

 

Getting to Vault 95 had been an ordeal.

Cait grew weaker every day they journeyed south and then west. She had thrown every psycho needle away from her body after her confession at the Castle, even though she had come to depend on the chem just to stay normal. Over the course of their trek, she started getting dizzy and breaking into dangerous fevers, which themselves broke into heavy sweating. The coughing fits came back, and double the intensity. Worst of all, she had started to hallucinate odd sounds and images random times, which caused her to stagger in random directions or walk into dangerous places. It took everything in his power for Nathan to keep her on course. “Just a few more miles.” He’d say to her, even though they had days left to talk. “Stay strong for me, Cait.”

“I’m always strong, you white-knight motherfucker.” She’d reply with a weak smile.

All vaults were dens of horrors and depravity. Nathan had come to know this fact better than anyone in the Commonwealth. And 95 was no different.

Gunners had taken control of the place. Had the pair of them been at their best, they might have charged in guns blazing and taken the whole garrison down by surprise. But with Cait unable to control her breathing and Nathan exhausted from the march, they settled on the slow game. Nathan would pick off stragglers who walked away from the vault’s door to take a piss or go on recon duty. Simple sniper duty, something he’d never been good at. But he did it because he had to. For her.

After a day or so, he’d killed five of them. That evening, the rest of the guard patrol filed out in bigger numbers to track the source of the death. As soon as they congregated near the body of his last victim, Nathan pulled a frag grenade from his belt and let it fly. His high school years on the football team paid off as it landed square at their feet, and took the entire group out in one spectacular explosion. Cait laughed as he stood up and cheered “Bhatia goes deep! Inside the ten yard line! Gunner assholes can’t even touch him!”

She then coughed hard enough to send her crashing to the ground. Her palm caught the brunt of the impact, and cut the skin open wide. They had to spend an hour scrounging through the bloody remains to find an intact first-aid kid, though Cait remained in good spirits as blood flowed down her forearm and her face went ivory-white.

The inside of the vault was just as bad as the outside, with the added detriment of closed-in spaces making his ears ring with every shot he took. The Gunners on the inside were either occupied with paperwork, their chow, or their sleep, and were unprepared for a frontal assault from a junkie and her exhausted bodyguard. Cait could no longer stand upright, so she leaned on Nathan’s shoulder as he plowed into the center of a violent nest of bad guys. For all the times she mocked him for being some kind of old-time comic book character, or ancient icon of stupid masculinity, in this moment he sure did feel like a hero.

 

***

 

She dragged herself into the chair, even though she didn’t want to. The experiment hidden deep within the bowels of Vault 95 seemed relatively untouched over the last 200 years. Had the Gunners been studying it? Maybe looking at a way to make their soldiers fight better? It didn’t matter now, they were all dead. The corpse of their leader sat just outside the door with several smoking holes in his chest.

She insisted on walking herself the final few steps, even though she had to stop and rest on the frame that led into the chair’s isolation room. She turned to look back at Nathan, who stood near the control terminal. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy with tears she could no longer hold back.

“What if… what if I go in there, and I don’t like what I see when I come out?” She asked him with the same vulnerable voice she had used at the Castle. “What if I need the psycho to… There were reasons I kept doing what I did. Things I try to forget. The past is… I can’t run away from it. It’s too…”

He moved away from the terminal and once again held Cait upright. He didn’t push her into the room, but neither did he pull her away. “We’ll face that pain together.” She smiled again and placed her forehead against his chest, to feel his heartbeat.

“You’ve done so much… and now you’re offerin’ to do more. Why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.” He said to her, even though his chest started beating much too fast for his own good.

She looked up at him, and she probably knew the answer as well. He saw her eyes go clear and determined because of it.

“Fine. I’m gonna sit in the chair. Push the button when I’m ready.”

 

***

 

Oh, how she SCREAMED.

Nathan had seen Cait jam different needles into her body for different reasons over the last year. Most common were the short jabs of a stimpak, but he had witnessed her injecting psycho a time or two. There had also been the infrequent doctor visits, where they’d flush both her system and his with anti-radiation meds and other things. Doctor needles, medicine needles, chems, accidental injections from various wasteland things. It had all been seen and done.

But this, this was different. Twin syringes almost the size of stingwing barbs plowed into both sides of Cait’s neck the instant Nathan turned to the terminal and typed “Initiate Purge”. A moment later, red fluid drained out of the right-side needle and into a clear plastic tube connected to something on the back of the chair. The blood pulled away from Cait’s pale body collected in some kind of glass canister before being pumped out, put through another machine, and then sent into the needle on the left. It reentered her body just as violently as it had been sucked out.

And Cait was in pain. More than Nathan was willing to put her through. She clawed against the hand-rests as she writhed and convulsed against the cold machinery. For the first moment, she tried to stay strong, to hold her emotions back like she had always done before. But the relentless chair denied her that strength. Only a moment after the purge began, she let out a blood-curdling shriek as if all the nerves in her body had been lit aflame.

Nathan hovered over the terminal like a starving vulture, ready to swoop down and end the procedure at any moment.

She howled at the sensations in her neck, and his hand reached for the keyboard.

She sucked in a ragged breath, and his fingertips brushed against the keys.

She screamed again, and he pressed the first sequence.

Then he looked up at her. Cait’s eyes were squeezed shut as tight as she could manage, her teeth gritted against themselves as she pulled her lips back so tight that she looked like a dried corpse. Her face had gone deep crimson and her hands, restrained like she were a criminal in a penitentiary, thrashed up and down as she instinctively tried to run away from the pain. Her legs kicked against similar restraints, which made the entire chair rock and vibrate from the force.

_How could he do this to her!?_

Cait screamed until a new streamer of blood flew past her lips. Or was it a vestige of the damage she had already done to her body?

Nathan’s hand hovered over the “Terminate” key.

The machine mercilessly drew her blood, then put it back.

She thrashed. She fought. She cried.

And neither of them stopped.

Nathan’s mind went back to the day they met, when she was still covered in bruises and open sores. To the time she started spitting blood. To the times she shook and convulsed every night. And the times she tried to get him into doing something they both would regret, her decisions fueled by alcohol and other chems. They had done this to her, not him.    

Nathan also thought about how small she seemed when she cried against his chest.

_But this machine was killing her!_

Her addictions had almost done that already. And here he was, the supposed hero-man that she trusted her soul and body with, the vault-boy who was supposed to save everyone, about to fail in saving her.

He pulled his hand away from the terminal. He hated terminals, anyway. Never understood how they worked. Zoe had always been the one to type away whenever they encountered one in the world.

Zoe was no longer here with him.

Cait was.

When she stopped screaming, the machine stopped working. The terminal’s screen showed a jaunty “Procedure Complete” before going dark.

He ran inside and gathered Cait’s unconscious body in his arms.

 

***

 

He didn’t know how long he marched, he just knew every step left him more exhausted than the last. His entire previous week had been spent trudging through hostile wilderness with an ever-weakening companion by his side. Then he fought through a literal army of gunners, only to then watch his companion wither and shriek in the worst pain he could imagine.

But now here he stood, carrying that companion in his arms as he walked through the wasteland. His guns had been holstered on his back, useless if anything were to attack. His feet roared at his pace, desperate to stop and rest, but he didn’t. His leg joints popped and groaned as he walked, but he ignored them. His muscles stabbed and rent.

The sun disappeared, to be replaced by an indifferent moon. In darkness, he walked with Cait in his arms.

Sunrise.

Dusk.

Moonrise.

And then a light.

A settlement!

Nathan did not remember setting Cait down in one of the beds offered to the legendary General, he had become too weary to think coherent thoughts. The settlement was small and new, set near the edge of the glowing sea but determined to make it work. They had been inspired by his efforts with the Minutemen, and were willing to do anything to help his cause. He only asked for a blanket, a bucket of clean water, and privacy.

He didn’t want to, but he drifted into sleep as soon as the settlers put their lights out for the night. He did not notice that Cait slumbered in perfect stillness right next to him.

A day passed, and one of the matriarchs of the settlement offered to watch over Cait while Nathan took a bath and got some food. He hadn’t eaten in days, and he looked just as bad as her. The old lady winked and suggested: “You might want to make yourself look presentable when your lady friend comes around.”

He wanted to retort that she wasn’t his “lady friend”, but the words died in his throat. Instead, he followed her instructions and took advantage of the hospitality so generously offered to him. The bathwater had been heated just for the General, and the meal had been roasted that day in celebration of his visit. Nathan had never tasted better steak in his life, even though the meat came from a horribly mutated source. Another settler offered to shave his ragged beard, as Nathan had clearly not groomed himself for days, perhaps weeks. The children scrambled to collect the shavings and put them into a stuffed “General doll” one of them sewed together. Creepy, but sweet.

He took his place at Cait’s beside later in the evening, and drifted into a much more comfortable sleep than before. This time, he _did_ notice that she rested in blissful silence.

 

***

 

She woke him up by tapping his shoulder. When he didn’t stir fast enough for her liking, Cait batted her hand against his cheek. When THAT didn’t make him stand up at attention, she slapped him.

“Wake up. Thirsty.” Cait groaned from the bed. In the morning light, he could see that she had soaked through her clothes and the sheets with sweat, but the unnatural pallor to her skin, as well as the dark bags and bloodshot eyes, were gone. She looked at him like a completely different person.

He spooned water up to her in small amounts, just to make sure she was okay, before she complained that she wasn’t “a fucking baby” and demanded a full mug.

After suppressing a chuckle, he got one for her, and resumed his position beside the bed.

“How are you feeling?” Nathan asked.

“I feel… really strange.” Came the wobbly answer. Cait sat up in the bed, though her muscles seemed unwilling to put in the effort. “Everythin’ feels so different. Clearer.”

She looked out the windows of the tiny farmhouse they occupied, to look at the clear blue sky and the small brown trees that swayed in the gentle wind. “Nothing’s like I remember. It’s like… the blur is gone. All the pain, the headaches… hell, the rush… they’re gone.”

She took another sip from her mug and continued to look around the room and the world outside. Her eyes darted back and forth, taking in details she probably hadn’t been aware of for months, maybe years. She gazed on the things beyond the window, as well as all the objects in the tiny room, down to the threads in the blanket that sat curled around her knees. She looked at everything but him.

“Was I really that far gone?” She whispered.

Nathan wanted to say “ _Yes._ ” and “ _How could you do that to yourself?_ ” and “ _I was by your side the whole time_.” But instead he grinned and said. “I was worried about you.”

She smiled too, and even let out a short, wistful chuckle. Finally, her eyes met his. “Seems like you weren’t the only one. I’ve got a feelin’ that Tommy had something like this in mind all along. Clever old bastard must have seen somethin’ in you… figured you’d be up to the challenge of getting me cleaned up.”

She took another drink of water, this one long and deep. She handed the mug back to Nathan to fill up. As he did so, their fingers brushed. Her cheeks turned pink as she looked up at him. “I guess he saw something in you that I missed.”

“Well, yeah.” Nathan retorted. “My charming personality.”

“Somethin’ like that.”

 

***

 

They took a long time getting back to Boston. Cait needed another day to rest at the settlement, and then insisted they take a leisurely pace for the return journey. Not so much because she felt weak or drained, she just wanted to see the world for the first time. Nathan obliged her, and he came to enjoy the leisurely, exploratory pace. They ran across a few ferals, a wandering super mutant separated from his group, and a handful of bugs, but she enjoyed herself as she helped Nathan eliminate the threat. Not in the way she used to, where she used the high of chems to make the killing seem sweet, but from the sheer exuberance of flexing her muscles, defending a partner, and making the world a little safer for the both of them.

They made a quick stop at Diamond City to refresh and resupply before going further into downtown, and rented a room at the Dugout Inn. Just one room, with one bed. Cait did not spend the evening at the bar like she always had done before. Oh, they drank some moonshine because neither of them trusted the shitty water supply run by an eight-year-old, but not enough to lose themselves. And not enough to make a mistake. It had just been nice for both of them to sleep next to someone who wanted them to be there.

And then, almost like a dream, they had come back to where they started. The Combat Zone.

Cait stood outside the heavy wooden doors for a long time, staring up at the ruined building with a timid, curious expression.

“We should turn around. C’mon, there’s gotta be something else to do.”

“This was your idea.” Nathan reminded her as he walked up to her side.

“It was a fuckin’ bad one. Not unusual for me.”

“It won’t be as bad as you think. And I’ll be here the whole time.”

“Fuck you for enabling me.” Cait smiled and tapped his shoulder with a loose fist. Something she had done more often lately.

Nathan chuckled as he pushed the doors open.

They had chosen today of all days to return because this was when Tommy usually had the shop closed. Even a purveyor of easy-to-produce violence still needed to do maintenance now and then. In days past, Cait would help him clean the blood off the stage, fix any lights that may have been broken by idiot raiders, and clean the filth off the seating. They did it once a month, or every two months, if Tommy felt like they needed the extra money. Cait had taken to loving and hating those quiet days. She loved the ability to relax and heal her wounds, hated the fact she had to kneel down and scrape blood and other fluids out of her home.

So when they walked into the old theater, the room echoed with deathly quiet. Not even the echoes of their footsteps reached them. The lights were all dead, and meager sunlight poked through the multitude of cracks in the roof. It gave everything a bone-white pallor. Motes of dust floated between the shafts of sunlight, held suspended in mute stillness.

The world 200 years after the bombs may have been dead, but this place seemed to ooze the very concept of death itself. Silence. Stillness. Nothing.

“This isn’t good.” Cait mumbled and readied her shotgun to fire. “It was never like this.”

The pair of them walked side by side through the empty aisles and shoddy raider constructions, guns in hand and breath caught in their throats. They took careful, precise steps through the pitted floor, making sure to keep away from piles of refuse and other noise-creating trash. They didn’t have any stealth boys on hand, but they did their best to remain stealthy while out in the open. He pointed his rifle at every dark corner, into every shadow, and toward every flicker of movement at the corner of his eye.

Cait had her eyes on one place alone: Tommy’s office.

“Tommy?” She called into the silence. “You in there?”

She changed the course and began walking right toward the off-center door. Nathan turned around to stare at the theater’s main entrance, just in case. They had been ambushed far too many times in old buildings and supposedly empty ruins for him to feel safe. He walked backward, weapon ready, to make sure they remained protected.

An eternity of quiet oblivion. Cait stopped walking, too afraid or too unsure of herself to finish the walk and enter the ghoul’s office.

The main door remained closed and still.

“Little bird? That you?” Came a familiar, cracked voice.

Nathan turned around and, gun still raised, pointed it at Tommy’s door.

“Of course it’s me, you daft rotten old bastard!” Cait called out with a grin similar to the one she used when teasing Nathan.

His door unlocked, and Tommy the ghoul stepped into the dim light of the theater. The passage of time had not changed him, ghouls never changed, but his expression sure was different.

“Oh my god.” Tommy said as though he had been transported back to the world before the apocalypse. “Cait. Oh my god.”

“C’mere!” She said as she put her shotgun down and reached out to hold Tommy in a loose, friendly hug. He joined her with enthusiasm, and rested his scab-filled brow on her shoulder as they made contact.

“Never thought I’d see you again, Cait.” Tommy sniffled.

“Yeah, well, for once you made a good business decision stickin’ me with him.”

Tommy did not let Cait go, but his eyes did rise to meet Nathan’s. He nodded his head, a near-imperceptible gesture, one filled with eternal thanks and gratitude.

It took some time for them to part, but they did, and it seemed as if the ghoul and the girl were both ten years younger and full of renewed energy.

“So what the fuck happened while I was gone?” Cait blurted out before Nathan could ask.

“Nothin’ big, nothin’ violent, if that’s what you’re asking. I just figured that, with you gone, that I’d gotten tired of peddling cheap thrills and bad people. If you know what I mean. Plus, it got too expensive to ship new booze from Diamond City. Something about a smuggling ring being broken up and the Mayor cracking down on exports? Ain’t no way I was gonna let myself get gutted by those booze running assholes in Goodneighbor.”

“Yeah. That might’ve been me.” Nathan said as he nervously scratched the back of his head. One of his… adventures had done just that, and exposed-slash-ended a very lucrative smuggling enterprise in the Great Green Jewel.

“So… what, you’re just squattin’ in here?” Cait asked as she once again looked over the downtrodden establishment.

“Pretty much. I don’t need food or nothin’. And the raiders still think this is a place you don’t fuck with, so they don’t come knocking.”

“Fuck that. You’re comin’ with us.” Cait nodded her head and looked to Nathan. “Our hero over here’s got to have a place for you in one of his settlements. Ain’t that right, Nathan?”

Still scratching his head, Nathan turned to face the strange pair of old friends. “Uh, yeah. I think so.”

“Decision done. No take backs. But first, let’s go get drunk.”

Nathan was the last to leave the Combat Zone, and he closed the door behind him. He did so because he could not contain his grin as he watched Cait and Tommy joke and reminisce of good times and old jokes. She would have fought with him and argued if he brought it up, but it felt good to watch her do something selfless for someone else.

 

***

 

A few weeks later, she bought him a gift. With her own money, no less, and not caps she took from his pocket.

A pair of binoculars. Scuffed up, and covered in tape from several attempts to repair them sometime in the past two centuries, but still functional. Hell, even the original manufacturer name could be made out if you held them up to the right light.

Nathan looked between her and the gift several times. “Didn’t you tell me to ‘shove these up my arse’ one time?”

“And I’ll make sure it happens if I don’t hear a ‘thank you’ in the next few seconds.” Again, she smiled, the kind that said she was kidding, but couldn’t express it any other way.

“Thank you, Cait.” He said as he slipped the binoculars into one hand and wrapped her in a hug. She let out an appreciative hum as he did so. Tuneless and formless, as they always were.

That night, they stood together outside Sanctuary, and looked up at the stars. This time, Cait paid attention to his every word as he pointed out the constellations he had memorized back when, and then she pointed out some of her own. Especially the formations that looked suspiciously like genitals.

Somewhere along the line, in the darkness, where both of them were shrouded in shadow and their eyes were focused on distant stars, their hands came together. Fingers intertwined together until neither of them were sure where Cait ended and Nathan began.

She cleared her throat.

“Listen… I’ve been thinkin’ about something for a long time. And this isn’t easy for me to say, and I want to get it right…”


End file.
